


The War Hero

by tobadillyboy



Category: The Halcyon (TV)
Genre: British Empire, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Happily Ever After, London, M/M, Romance, World War 2, hint of smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-06 21:02:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14656188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tobadillyboy/pseuds/tobadillyboy
Summary: It is a common misconception from the outside to think that in a relationship, the shortest one always has to be the bottom. In Toby Hamilton and Adil Joshi's case, Adil was most definitely top. And not only because, of the two, he was the most experienced in the things of the flesh. It's just that the way their relationship had started, he'd always been the one "in charge". He'd taken it upon himself to make Toby Hamilton happy. Or at least, bring him out of his shell. And if that included having to stretch him out a little bit, then so be it. Adil would never forget the first time he "broke" Toby in. The first time he had entered him fully. It had felt like such a victory, such an achievement, on a par with the day he landed the job of Head Barman at the Halcyon Hotel. From a refugee boat to the capital's palaces in the space of five years. Started from the bottom and now he was here...





	1. From the Bottom

**Author's Note:**

> The story of Adil and Toby after the bomb, from Adil's perspective. I wanted to explore the reasons why two polar opposites like Toby Hamilton and Adil Joshi would fall for each other, and why the relationship would work in the long run.
> 
> In the third person because English is not my native language and I don't know how to make dialogue sound natural between two native characters. Also, you will be seeing sides of Adil and Toby that were not at all hinted at in the show, but the characters are supposed to be the ones in the show.

It is a common misconception from the outside to think that in a relationship, the shortest one always has to be the bottom. In Toby Hamilton and Adil Joshi's case, Adil was most definitely top. And not only because, of the two, he was the most experienced in the things of the flesh. It's just that the way their relationship had started, he'd always been the one "in charge". He'd taken it upon himself to make Toby Hamilton happy. Or at least, bring him out of his shell. And if that included having to stretch him out a little bit, then so be it. Adil would never forget the first time he "broke" Toby in. The first time he had entered him fully. It had felt like such a victory, such an achievement, on a par with the day he landed the job of Head Barman at the Halcyon Hotel. From a refugee boat to the capital's palaces in the space of five years. Started from the bottom and now he was here...

The first time he landed eyes on the youngest of the late Lord Hamilton's sons, he was struck. Toby was trailing behind his mother and father, who were greeting their guests with their most amazing fake smiles, around the room in the hotel lobby, and Toby was made to tag along, and Adil had never seen anyone of such a high position looking so miserable. Although they were of the same age, Adil immediately felt like he had to look after Toby and bring him out into the world. It was of course part of his job to detect his clients' mood, in order to give them what they needed, and to make conversation and keep it going, in order to keep them buying alcohol. Adil prided himself in thinking that he was very good at this. And that was, for the most part, what had brought him here in such a short period of time. But when it came to Toby Hamilton, it was different. His older brother Freddie had had no need for a growing up phase. He just went smoothly from cute little boy to handsome young bachelor to talented RAF pilot in the space of a few years, seemingly with no effort at all. Toby on the other hand, although Freddie's twin (!!!) had always suffered from the Second Child syndrome. The one that always comes as an afterthought. The less important one. The two men were born only a few minutes apart, but Toby looked a couple of years younger and more awkward than his "older" brother. Physically, and mentally. Toby had been well on his way to becoming the eternal petulant adolescent, the broody child with a constant frown, the silent wild animal in the corner of the room looking constantly lost. Until Adil found him.

In his formative years working the bars of the most colourful establishments of London’s Soho, Adil had learned to recognise this type of clients. They always arrived by themselves, and always left by themselves. They might sometimes sit with some people, but they looked eternally bored out of their wits and always ended the night nursing a lonely bottle on their own at the bar, pouring their heart out to the nearest person, namely the one working the bar, until closing time. At first Adil had felt a lot of pity for them, but as time went by, and he learned to know them, he soon realised that they were his favourite kind. If you scratched a little beneath the surface of the most introverted person, you almost inevitably found the most fascinating personalities and life stories. Happy people were essentially uninteresting, Adil found. And when he started making a name for himself in the cocktail-making world, and moved on to higher circles and more prestigious establishments, he had found himself missing his sad ones the most. Blame the immaculate education that the English aristocracy received, or the sense of security that wealth brings, but the higher up the social scale Adil climbed, the fewer depressed clients there were around. Noblemen and women were the best actors. They excelled at the art of make believe in the perfect life. They could be secretly depressed, but God forbid they ever told you about it. Coming to a drinking establishment was an amusement like any other, or an obligation like any other, for the well-to-dos. Admitting to being at a low ebb was a sign of failure. And England could not afford a failing aristocrat. That is why, when Adil first set eyes on Toby Hamilton, he had felt a strong pang of nostalgia, and an immediate sense of affection for the boy, who was in a way his boss, but not really. And just like that, his decision was made. He was going to make Toby a new man.


	2. In the Club

**CHAPTER TWO**

Adil had lost sight of Toby approximately twenty minutes ago, and that was worrying him. He had been cornered by the owner of the club they were in, the Vauxhall Tavern, who was trying to invite them to a house party on the French Riviera sometime in May, or was it Lake Geneva, Adil did not really know, as his attention was focused on the dancefloor, scanning the crowd, trying to locate his wayward lover. Losing Toby Hamilton in a club was a recipe for disaster. The last time it happened, Adil found him on the roof, getting arrested by the police along with other revellers as they'd been singing and screaming into the dawn for hours before the neighbours took action. It was just their luck that Adil had an excellent way with words, which had spared his boy a night in a cell, and that Toby was in full drag so nobody recognised him and they had been safe from scandal. Ah! yes, when Adil said he was going to make Toby a new man, he actually meant, well… A woman. Or a queen. In any case he was a natural. And Adil had sensed this in him very soon in their relationship.

Adil himself had versed in wearing drag a few months after arriving in London, as he discovered that there was an extravagant amount of money to be made by exotic young she-males with perfect eyebrows if they were willing to be very nice to older gentlemen. If cocktail-making was his trade, drag was his art. This had helped him and his family get by and buy a flat within a year of their arrival in the country, which his family took a great pride in, as they all thought he did it on the meagre salaries he made with his bartending shifts. He had even managed to buy a second flat for himself, although smaller, but that allowed him to store his dresses without the fear of getting caught. Adil had pretty much stopped wearing them since he worked at the Halcyon, as the money was good enough, but when he became friends with Toby and he started discovering aspects of his personality, he sensed that Toby was craving attention, and that he was craving for people to tell him he was beautiful. So he was the perfect candidate. Lo and behold, Adil and him became regulars on the drag circuit, and as Toby always came out already dressed up, nobody suspected that they were dancing with or getting grinded at by the respectable Toby Hamilton. They were probably members of parliament, or clients of the Halcyon themselves, for all Adil and Toby knew. But sometimes, as in this precise moment, Adil wished he hadn't liberated the respectable Toby Hamilton so well, because he was probably somewhere getting involved in some mischief or another.

Toby never did drag for money, firstly as he didn't need to, but also because he was not a “performer”. He did not have an act of singing or dancing or impersonating. He only did it because it allowed him to be himself. He would just turn up and watch the shows and generally have a good time, away from the constraints of aristocratic obligations and ministerial analysis. It was a place where he could totally unwind and let his hair down, and Adil was very proud of himself for it. At least, most of the time he was. Right now, he was getting worried sick. He excused himself to the club owner and started pacing the dancefloor up and down looking for a gold dress and a black wig. It was Adil's favourite outfit of Toby’s, as it brought out the green in his eyes. Yes, he did have green eyes, although they looked brown most of the time, when he was not wearing his colours. And the skirt was deliciously short, in a 1920's kind of fashion, which showcased Toby's legs perfectly, much to Adil's pleasure. When he didn't find his lover in the main room, Adil walked to the back of the club, down a low-ceilinged corridor, where the private booths were, as he suspected that maybe Toby had been feeling particularly frisky and followed somebody down here. He took a discreet look into each booth, trying to recognise the golden dress amidst the limbs and the frill, and finally he found him. Toby was sandwiched between two rather burly men, which made Adil smile, as it enhanced the beauty of Toby's delicate frame, and he stood for a few moments just watching the entrancing choreography of flesh on flesh being played out in front of him. When one of the two men invited him in, he did not hesitate, and took a very enthusiastic part in bringing his beloved to a climax, and after he thanked the gentlemen for their offering, he took Toby in his arms tenderly while his orgasm was wearing off. They stood like this for a moment, Adil stroking Toby's neck and back gently, and slightly rocking him back and forth like a loving mother. That was what had been missing from Toby's life all along. A motherly figure who cared about his wants and needs.


	3. She Walks in Beauty

** CHAPTER THREE **

Adil could not really blame Lady Priscilla for having been a rather distant mother to Toby. Of course, when he had first arrived at the Halcyon, he had found her insufferable, like everyone else did, but the more he heard about her from the senior members of staff, the more he had learned to have compassion for her. Her family had originated from an Eastern European wealthy line and she had landed the golden ticket by marrying the very handsome Lord Lawrence Hamilton. At the time, Lord Hamilton had just inherited the title from his father, and he had started a promising career in diplomacy, which had allowed the young couple to travel to numerous exotic destinations, on a seemingly never-ending holiday, all at His Majesty's expense. The twins had been conceived during what Priscilla considered the happiest time in their marriage, on a cruise down the River Nile, when her husband was working at the British High Commission in the Sultanate of Egypt. The Sultanate turned into a Kingdom and the relations between the two monarchies soured, as Lady Priscilla's tummy was growing, and she had made the voyage home across the Mediterranean from Alexandria to Portsmouth heavily pregnant with what she thought was only one healthy baby, before arriving back in England just in time to deliver. After Freddie was born, nobody was expecting to see a second baby coming out, and Toby had made his appearance unannounced, in the midst of what everyone thought was afterbirth, a smaller and more fragile version of his brother. In a bid to pay homage to both their aristocratic lineage and their shared passion for ancient Egypt, their first born was named Lawrence Alfred Rameses, and in honour of the romantic nights they spent in Alexandria reading poetry to each other, their unexpected second son was baptised Thomas Byron Alexander. Freddie had never been particularly proud of wearing a pharaoh's name and never publicised it.

Toby had had a sickly infancy, much to his mother's distress, while his brother Freddie grew gracefully sickness-free into a young and lively little lord. Freddie was everyone's favourite, while Toby was spending the best part of his time in bed. He would see more of nurses and doctors than members of his family. While his brother was learning to socialise among the children of his age, Toby was tucked away in his bedroom, alone with his books. And then when the twins were coming into their seventh year, tragedy struck. After several miscarriages, Lady Priscilla gave birth to a baby girl, but she was still at birth. The doctors had strongly recommended she did not try another time. She had been so incredibly eager to have a daughter, and had already found a name : Victoria. She had made so many plans in her head about bringing up a daughter in the most respectable manner and have her marry in even higher circles than herself, perhaps even a royal prince if they were lucky. What she had prayed for so tirelessly the Lord gave her but took away immediately. Then her husband lost a great deal of his fortune in 1929, and they had been forced to rely on the hotel's revenue and live there permanently. Lady Priscilla had spent the entire first year of her presence in the building locked away in her room, windows and shutters closed, in thrall to the most profound state of grief. God forbid anyone would see her cry. When she finally re-emerged, nothing had been the same ever again. She was still Lady Priscilla, but she looked fifteen years older, and she had all but lost touch with her husband, who had been forced to run the hotel as a businessman to keep the family's finances afloat, and Adil suspected that it was during that time that Lord Hamilton started looking for the company of other women. She would be eternally resentful to her husband for failing to console her and letting her deal with the horrible loss of their baby daughter on her own. Only her relationship with Freddie survived, as he was the bearer of the family's torch and the promise of a brighter future. Her second son, she barely knew to begin with, as she had never really had a proper conversation with him that did not involve the mention of phlegm or bowel movements, and Toby had come to rely on Freddie and the hotel staff, especially Emma, for emotional support as he was growing up.

Adil and Toby got out of the Vauxhall Tavern and caught a taxi back to the hotel. They would be able to catch some sleep before the Sunday lunch at the Hotel Halcyon, hosted by the Hamilton Family, a tradition since the re-opening of the hotel. Toby loved to engage in the most reckless debauchery the night before this type of familial obligations, it helped to keep him sane. This time he had been pretty tame. Adil helped Toby out of the taxi cab and was holding his arm like he was walking an actual lady back into the hotel through the back door, when his gaze suddenly landed on one of the second floor's windows, from where he could feel they were being observed. Lady Hamilton was watching them with an unreadable expression on her face. Adil bowed his head in defeat, but he didn't tell Toby as he feared the relations between mother and son would disintegrate further. As he was helping Toby take his make-up off in his room and get ready for bed, he looked at him adoringly, in fear that this would be the very last time he would see him like this. His heart constricted in his chest as he was wiping the black liner from beneath his lover's eyes, while Toby was still chattering on innocently, blissfully unaware of their having been found out. Adil tucked Toby into bed and kissed him goodnight, then he closed the door behind him and made his way to the upper rooms of the hotel as quietly as he could, and although he tried to hold them back, regretful tears started rolling down his cheeks. He walked up the flights of stairs to the staff bedrooms, probably for the very last time.


	4. Dilly Boy

** CHAPTER FOUR **

Usually Adil was very good at hiding his own emotions and appearing immaculately professional when he arrived for work, but right now he was a ball of nerves. He was potentially about to lose everything he had been carefully putting in place for the last five years. Not only his friendship with Toby, but also his job, and his reputation. All the recommendations he had gathered performing for elite members of society and mixing the best cocktails, he was about to lose and start all over again. From the bottom.

He had managed very little sleep that night, but he had to pretend that everything was as normal, so he was carefully laying the tables for the afternoon's drinks in the lounge, as he usually would on a Sunday. He had not seen Toby and ignored the state he was in. Probably the worse for wear given the amount of drinks he had had. Despite Adil's conscientious coaching in hedonism in the last two years, Toby still had a very limited resistance to alcohol. Adil could hear the chatter from the dining room echoing down the hall, as the guests were enjoying their Sunday feast, and they would soon relocate to the lounge, and Adil knew he had very little time left as an employee of the Halcyon. Lady Priscilla would certainly have a word with Mr Garland about him and the toxic influence he was having on her second son and Adil would be unemployed before nightfall. He was on the verge of tears again when the first guests started arriving and he had to take their orders. He calmed himself down. There was nothing he could do. He tried to play and he lost. That was fair game. He only had to take the L and move on. That's what happened to the likes of him. He would ask his older employers at the Café Royale, or the Golden Calf, if they would have him back. He would go back to performing. He was still in shape and had kept practicing his meanest lap dance routine to Toby so he still had the moves. If all else failed, he would go back to Piccadilly. He would probably lose his residency permit due to having no legal employer, but he would be okay. London’s underground was his oyster.

The guests continued their migration and settled down in threes or fours around the tables, chatting gaily, oblivious to their waiter’s inner turmoil. Adil was still waiting to see Toby but he could not see him at his mother’s table. He started worrying again. Had she already had a word with him and forbid him to show his face? Adil felt almost dizzy at the thought that he probably had been the architect of the definitive separation between mother and son, and just as he felt he was about to have a nervous breakdown, Toby Hamilton made his entrance in the lobby. All heads turned and knowing glances and smiles were exchanged between the younger members of the assembly. With Adil's coaching Toby had become the talk of the town and it was the hippest thing to do to come hang out at the Halcyon Hotel bar, and it had helped put the hotel back on the map after its reopening. Toby slowly made his way to his mother’s table and kissed her hand and Lady Priscilla did not flinch or lean back from his touch, so Adil was at least reassured about that. Toby had only just woken up and had not lunched with everyone else. He sat down and said a couple of hellos to known faces around. He looked tired but happy. Instinctively Adil prepared a spoonful of bicarbonate of soda dissolved in a tall glass of water, and brought it to his lover. Toby protested that he hadn’t ordered anything, but at Adil’s suggestion that it would make him feel much better, Toby drank it, fighting back his nausea. Adil avoided meeting Lady Priscilla's gaze. Toby thanked him for being always there for him, and to his great surprise Lady Priscilla joined in and thanked him too. Adil looked at her in shock, and he saw that she did not seem angry at him at all. On the contrary, she looked genuinely grateful. He looked back questioningly at Toby, who was smiling broadly, his eyes still tired but looking undoubtedly cheerful. Adil took his leave from the table with a slight bow, an enormous weight having been lifted from his shoulders, and carried on serving guests all afternoon waiting impatiently until they'd leave and he could see Toby in private, to explain the miracle that just occurred.

Finally the hour came and after clearing the tables Adil retreated behind the service entrance, and he was so giddy with excitement that he decided to hide in the wine cellar to calm himself down. The wine cellar, the place where they first kissed, their happy place. It seemed Toby had the same train of thought as a few minutes later, he entered the cellar too, and they hugged each other passionately. When they broke their embrace and had gathered themselves, Toby finally explained to him what had happened. He had been asleep for a couple of hours when he was woken by somebody's touch on his face, and to his surprise it was his mother gently caressing his forehead and putting his hair back, and murmuring sweet nothings into his ear. He had never seen her in such an affectionate mood, but it was not a dream and he asked her what the matter was. The answer had shocked Toby, but it was an even greater shock to Adil. She said, as she started crying, that she had spent the last 15 years mourning a daughter, while she had a daughter all along, and told him to go back to sleep.


	5. The War Hero - epilogue

** CHAPTER FIVE **

Of all the things that Adil liked about Toby, what he found the most endearing was his self-consciousness. Toby Hamilton was an exceptionally gifted mind, had studied at Oxford University, and worked at the War Office as an intelligence analyst, which had probably contributed to the war effort far more than anyone else he knew, including his RAF pilot brother Freddie ; but still, he thought that he was as useless as a fork in a world of soup.

Lately his favourite topic of conversation was a man named Alan Turing (or was it Thuring? Adil wasn't sure) who had apparently invented a machine that could do the work of a hundred people like Toby in an instant. Adil did not see why exactly that was a good thing, but it was so very like Toby to admire an inanimate object over himself. He said it was going to revolutionise the entire world and the way people would communicate, more so than the telephone, and he could hold forth about it for hours on end. Adil did not understand what the big fuss was about, but if they were to be believed it had helped win the war immeasurably. One day soon after the victory, Toby got a phone call and he was invited to the MI5 Office for a meeting with that Turing man, and for the first time Adil saw Toby cry tears of joy instead of sadness. Toby's department had worked on the data provided by Turing’s unit, and Toby was really excited to be meeting him in person.

It had been hard enough convincing the MI5 that any breaches of security had been entirely Lord d’Abberville’s fault, and they had seemed contented with that explanation. Toby was still moved to another department, which he said was a blessing in disguise as whatever it was they were working on, it was much more interesting than before. It did not seem to register with Toby that only about 7 people in the world could understand what he was doing, and when he went to the meeting, he was shocked when he heard that Alan Turing knew his name. He also said that Turing's hands were very soft, and that he smelled nice too, and Adil had almost started feeling kind of jealous. It was one thing to engage in casual sex with strangers, but it was a whole different kettle of fish to have his lover’s entire imagination captured by someone else. Especially, Turing later sent Toby a thank you letter, which Adil was peeved about, but he could not stand to remain cross with Toby for very long and they'd had the most glorious make-up sex ever. It turned Adil on to no end, knowing that his very own Toby, the one whose entire life he held in his hands, was basically a war hero. So from time to time Adil would give him the seeing-to that heroes deserved. No amount of stupid data can replicate that, Adil thought every time he sent Toby over the edge.

Toby got the letter framed and kept it on his mantelpiece in the flat where he and Adil lived. They had moved in together while the hotel was being rebuilt and Toby needed some house personnel, and soon enough, temporary became permanent, and the issue of Toby getting married was never brought up ever again. It was only decades later that Adil fully grasped the importance of the work that they had been doing. He had helped fund shelters for the homeless and persecuted LGBT people in India, with the money he had made owning several successful bars in London, and what he had inherited from being Toby's sole heir and executor, and every time he sent them an email or video called them, he would think of how excited Toby would have been had he lived long enough to see these gadgets being invented. And he didn’t feel sad that he was gone, because they had been incredibly happy, and he saw Toby’s smile in every screen that people held in their hands.


End file.
